Cataclysm-dda: Animal Empathy trait not working as advertized

[moxian]

Game version: 0.C-26854-g8d6cdbf

Operating system: Win 7

Tiles or curses: Tiles

Mods active: Default (novitamins, filthy_morale)

Expected behavior

Small woodland animals (like turkeys and rabbits) not running away from me when I have Animal Empathy trait.
Alternatively: Animal Empathy trait not advertising "Peaceful animals not running away from me"

Actual behavior

Turkeys run away from me when I have Animal Empathy trait

Steps to reproduce the behavior

Start a new character with Animal Empathy trait.
Read the description of the trait: "Peaceful animals will not run away from you <...>"
Try to get near small woodland animals.
Observe them "Fleeing!"

[Night-Pryanik]

That's not a bug IMO. Turkeys are scared too much by everything, even Animal Empathy can't cope with their fear - their morale by default is -8, and Animal Empathy reduces it only to -3.

The formula is

if( effective_morale < 0 ) {
        if( effective_morale + effective_anger > 0 && get_hp() > get_hp_max() / 3 ) {
            return MATT_FOLLOW;
        }
        return MATT_FLEE;

So after applying Animal Empathy their effective morale is -3, effective morale + effective anger = -3 + -70 = -73 which of course is lesser than zero, so turkeys WILL flee.

[moxian]

Here are all the wildlife monsters with negative base morale from monsters.json:
-5: deer, jackrabbit
-7: rabbit
-8: chicken, crow, duck, squirrel, turkey
-20: groundhog
-50: lemming, muskrat
-55: chipmunk

Since the trait only raises morale by 5, it should only ever work against deer and jackrabbits, but the description implies its much wider applicability. I don't know how the numbers were chosen.

I took the trait expecting to be able to specifically hunt those small animals in peace, and not use a bike/car to catch up to them. But given how it's only useful against deer (and I don't think I've seen those ever), that doesn't sound very exciting.

[Zireael07]

@moxian: I wouldn't be surprised if the person writing the description saw only rabbits and deer...

[Night-Pryanik]

I can suggest buff morale gain from 5 to 55 cover even the largest negative base morale.

[Leland]

Could also have animal empathy override animal fear altogether so that future, lower values wouldn't suffer the same issue. Probably around here?

https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/4a2dad3fb01b9eebbd06632977d4c8825c536ca8/src/monmove.cpp#L214-L222

[kevingranade]

Increasing the number seems fine, as long as it doesn't make them stick
around while being shot at.

[Wuzzy2]

At the very least the description should be fixed because as of now it is obviously wrong.